Mr. Asim Siddiqui is a young, dynamic entrepreneur,
now about to organise an international exhibition on Textile Industry of
Pakistan under the name Texofab: 2001

Earlier, he has had organised IDEAS 2000, an
exhibition about Pakistan's growing arms industry, which was a great
success and was hailed by all and sundry.

Mr. Asim is hopeful that the international exhibition
on Textile Industry will also be a successful like IDEAS 2000, and will
give a boost to the Textile Industry of Pakistan. Following are excerpts
from an interview he gave to Mr. Agha Masood:

Q. You are organising Texofab in Karachi in
the month of October, what is the main objective behind the exhibition?

A: The main objective of this exhibition is to
increase exports. This exhibition is a venture of Export Promotion
Bureau. They have appointed Pegasus to organise this exhibition.

Our objective is to raise the profile of our textile
and garment industry, which is the backbone of the Pakistani economy and
our exports. The unit price of our exports has steadily been declining
and one of the main reasons cited is the low quality perception in the
mind of international buyers.

EPB and Pegasus jointly aim to create a platform
(Texofab)
where our products and their manufacturers are professionally projected
to the international buyers.

Not only this, but Texofab will be an ideal platform
to make alliances in the value chain, vertical and horizontal
associations will be established in the exhibition.

Q. How many foreign participants do you expect
to attend the exhibition?

A: We have invited buyers from all over world,
from Malaysia to the USA. We expect at least 100 buyers to visit our
exhibition.

Q. What is the response of local textile
manufacturers to the exhibition?

A: The response from the local manufacturers
has been overwhelming. In a short period of one month of our marketing,
we have already reserved 4% of our available space. It seems that the
industry was waiting for an opportunity to display the dynamism and the
vibrance present in our textile and garment sector.

Q: Are you facing some problems in organising
the exhibition? If yes, could you kindly elucidate?

A: So far the problems being faced are typical
of an infant industry. There are many areas where the support and
services required for an exhibition are missing. However, with the
experience of IDEAS 2000 behind us, we are trying to fill the void by
developing our own services. A good example of this is the act that we
have hired our own designers to design the stalls of our exhibitors, so
that we can provide them with customised solutions for the most
professional projection of their products.

Q. Do you think that time is short for this
exhibition? Will you compensate it by accelerating the pace of
publicity?

A: Time is very short for this exhibition, we
were given a time frame of a little over three months. But we had the
concept clear as to what we wanted to achieve and how we were going to
work towards it. I remember when we were making the timeline, I had to
relate to my staff that there seems to be not much time, so we only have
to list the activities and just get on with things.

As I mentioned, the response has been very good from
the local manufacturers, or foreign missions abroad and the buyers that
we have invited. So, we are hopeful that we will be able to successfully
execute the task given to us by promoting the textile and garment
industry of Pakistan.